Entertainment
It’s Been 30 Years Since National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation — See the Cast Today
Three decades ago, a film filled with plenty of holiday hijinks hit the theaters and eventually became a classic. That movie? National Lampoon‘s Christmas Vacation. But where is the cast today?
The John Hughes film was released on December 1, 1989, and was led by comedy heavyweight, Chevy Chase, who already brought quite the film resume including his work on Saturday Night Live, and roles in Caddyshack, Fletch and ¡Three Amigos!. Not to mention he had already worked on two other National Lampoon films, Vacation and European Vacation.
Chevy was also joined by Beverly D’Angelo — who played his wife — as well as Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki, who played their kids. Even Randy Quaid makes an appearance as the quirky brother. But the cast was jammed-packed with other notables.
“I think we had the best actors of our time: E.G. Marshall, John Randolph, Doris Roberts, and Diane Ladd. That’s quite a group,” Chevy once gushed to Rolling Stone.
While the film got mixed reviews upon its released, it not only topped the box office for a couple of weeks, but it has gained more and more popularity as the years have gone by. Some people have even compared it to another iconic holiday film: It’s a Wonderful Life — something that Chevy doesn’t exactly agree with.
“Comparing ‘Christmas Vacation’ to ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ is the silliest thing,” he said. “That film starred the greatest movie actor of all time and the idea that our movie could ever be connected in some fashion to something so brilliant and beautiful always made feel like, ‘That’s all they had to write about?’ It’s very flattering and I suppose ‘Christmas Vacation’ is a modern look at Christmas. But James Stewart, my God! What a movie. I could talk about that one all day. Frank Capra’s grandson was a second Assistant Director on ‘Christmas Vacation.'”
However, every time the holidays roll around, people can expect to see this classic on the small screen, as it is always played on a loop. “I don’t watch it if it’s on TV, but just recently, my wife Jane was showing me some clips of it on her computer,” Chevy explained. “I started realizing, hey — that was really funny! It bucked me up. Do you know what my favorite line is? ‘Have you checked our s–tters, honey?'”
Scroll on down to learn what happened to the cast of Christmas Vacation!
